NaNo Recap (or, Why I Have Been MIA for the Last Month)

So, for those of you who don't know, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time ever this year! And it was insane. And exhilarating. And exhausting. And so much fun. And here's a recap of what happened.

Before November 1st, I flip-flopped back and forth on whether or not I actually wanted to do NaNo. As you may or may not know, I'm a junior this year. Which means homework. And standardized testing. And more homework. And more standardized testing. And a whole crap-ton clubs and other things-I-do-to-get-into-a-semi-decent-college-and-maybe-have-a-future. And Forensics (which is a public speaking thing, not a dead body thing) season is about to begin, and winter tennis leagues are starting up. So I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to NaNo. But due to a number of very convincing CP's (oh, you know who you are. Stop trying to look innocent ;), I signed up on the website and made outlines and was totally pumped for November to begin.

The novel I planned to write was about a girl dying in a hospital from a car accident. Her car had slid down a hill and crashed into a tree.

On October 29th, a boy in my grade died when his car crashed into a tree.

So...I almost quit NaNo then. See, I go to this teensy school where everyone knows everyone, and our grade only has about a hundred people, so...yeah. That was a very, very hard day of school. I sat down to finish outlining that night, and I  just couldn't.

What happened? I don't really know. I didn't just want to sit there and mope, I guess. I wanted to distract myself. And so, all of my emotions kind of poured into the story, and it ended up being so personal that I'm actually kind of nervous to let people see it.

Also, my other novel (WILDFLOWER, remember?) was supposed to go to acquisitions in the last week of October. Because of Hurricane Sandy, it got moved back. Well, they ended up having it in the first week of November. And I had really high hopes because two senior editors were presenting it. And it had been at acquisitions for so long. And, I dunno, the two editors actually seemed to like it.

Only...the publishing house ended up passing it on because they had a similar project coming out soon.

And yes, I was crushed. I was at a friend's house when my agent called with the news (and yeah, said friend overheard everything and blackmailed me into telling the whole story, so now there's one more person who knows...I was SO annoyed), and I still had to go volunteer that night and pretend everything was normal while in reality I just wanted to kick unicorns off a cliff, and honestly, I just didn't want to write. I was in a very deep why-the-heck-am-I-still-doing-this-I'm-obviously-no-good funk. So the NaNo novel just sat there for a while. I was also very rarely home on weekends this November, and our teachers decided to just bury us in homework, so between all of that, I had almost no hope that I'd finish NaNo.

What happened? Um, I got sick of feeling sorry for myself. Guys, after a while, moping gets boring. And once I started writing, I couldn't stop. Also, I admit it--I really wanted to win NaNo (I have this weird thing with schedules. Once I make one, I am obsessed with staying on track). And honestly? I just wanted to finish.

And I did.